There are a wide variety of bets offered on Midnite's platform - one style of bet is a handicap bet. For these bets, we add a handicap to one team's score, and then we will see who wins. Let's take a look at how you can interpret any handicap bet.
Match Handicap
The Match Handicap market is probably the most popular handicap bet. You'll see this in series where at least 2 maps will be played.
As an example, let's look at a best of three series between FaZe and Cloud9. We have a Match Handicap market between Faze +1.5 and Cloud9 -1.5.
All handicap bets work the same way - they tell you what you are betting on (in this case, the Match) and the handicap, or spread, being applied to the final score (+1.5 / -1.5).
Consider the FaZe +1.5 bet - this means we will add 1.5 to FaZe's final score in the series.
Let's say Cloud9 wins the series 2:1. To evaluate the handicap bet, we add 1.5 to FaZe's score, giving them a final score of 2.5 beating Cloud9's score of 2 - so the FaZe +1.5 bet would win.
If Cloud9 wins the series 2:0, even adding 1.5 to FaZe's score is not enough to give them the lead - so the Faze +1.5 bet would lose.
Note that for best of 3 series, the +1.5 handicap bet is equivalent to betting on the team to win at least one map.
The Cloud9 -1.5 bet is simply the other side of the Faze +1.5 bet.
Note that you only add the handicap once - don't add both +1.5 to FaZe's score and -1.5 to Cloud9's score.
Match Handicap - Best of two
For a best of two series, you'll see +0.5 and -0.5 handicaps.
Following the same idea and adding the handicap to the final scores, you'll see that +0.5 is equivalent to winning at least one map in the series, and -0.5 is the same as winning 2:0.
Esport Specific Handicaps
You'll also see other esport specific handicap bets on our site. These are always for a specific map, unless otherwise noted.
For Counter-Strike you can often find Rounds Handicap bets, where you add the handicap to the number of rounds won on that map.
For Dota 2 and League of Legends you may find Kills Handicap bets where you add the handicap to the number of kills on that map.
If you run into any other handicap market not shown above, you can follow the same process to interpret how the bet works.